Does someone think to organize or to join a Solar Energy Camp or a Renewable Energies Camp?I knew that during the last burnings the Black Rock Solar was giving electric power to part of the BRCity through a not-connected solar power plant.Will it be the same for the 2013 event or the topic is no developed and everyone has to bring his own power generation system?

I believe solar power for the playa is extremely wasteful in the big picture. If you factor in the energy it takes to manufacture the solar panels vs. the piddly-ass amount of electricity you get from them that one week, it's a big net loss and not "green" at all. The "greenest" thing to do is get a group together and rent a large biodiesel generator to share over several camps. That's what Burning Man does. It's also the most cost-effective way to go.

Solar is mostly just for hobbyists who do it just because it's their thing and they want to. And that's totally cool. More power to ya... except you'll have less power!

GreyCoyote: "At this rate it wont be long before he is Admiral Fukkit."Delle: Singularly we may be dysfunctional misfits, but together we're magic.

A Honda still gives you more watts per dollar than that! 70 watts ain't much. And that's only during the day under ideal conditions.I still say solar on the playa is a hobbyist thing not a practical thing. I'd need about 40 or 50 of those panels. Plus controller and batteries and a really large inverter. Doesn't math out.

GreyCoyote: "At this rate it wont be long before he is Admiral Fukkit."Delle: Singularly we may be dysfunctional misfits, but together we're magic.

Capt. Goddammit is correct, of course! Biodiesel is carbon neutral, though not noise-free. Solar at BM is about learning and experimenting, not a financial model for the cheapest energy.

The energy cost of manufacturing a solar panel varies with the tech, not so bad with compound thin films. But BM has never been an energy or carbon conscious culture, in fact some people presenting efficiency concerns have been ridiculed on this board. BM is a consumption and display culture.

Anyway, the AEZ Zone Village requirement to camp is simply no generators. Maybe 10% have solar panels. They are also big on solar food cookers. On playa, stop by Snow Koan solar in Nectar Village, the organizer is a commercial solar installer, very knowledgable. Black Rock Solar, reachable through the Earth Guardians camp is BM's off playa solar installation project working in the surrounding communities.

I've got a friend at AEZ, Reverend Gadget, who's heavily into solar. He'd undoubtably disagree with my opinion. He's got an all-solar bus with a regular house stove/oven and fridge, and had a mutant vehicle land boat that was all solar (and it worked great!).BUT... he works with that stuff for a living and has shit lying around that most of us don't. He said the solar panels on his mutant vehicle would have cost $7,000.

GreyCoyote: "At this rate it wont be long before he is Admiral Fukkit."Delle: Singularly we may be dysfunctional misfits, but together we're magic.

Captain Goddammit wrote:A Honda still gives you more watts per dollar than that!

... because the cost of the energy is hidden by the systems we have in place that foster the use of fossil fuels. (Which, in turn, is just sequestered solar power from plants and animals that died and whose hydrocarbons were crunched.)

Captain Goddammit wrote:70 watts ain't much. And that's only during the day under ideal conditions.I still say solar on the playa is a hobbyist thing not a practical thing. I'd need about 40 or 50 of those panels. Plus controller and batteries and a really large inverter. Doesn't math out.

Alternatively, be efficient and human-sized. It takes a lot of power to seem louder, brighter, or bigger than life.

Unless you're going to use that solar power technology every day the rest of the year, you're just being more wasteful than the people who just truck in some gasoline. Otherwise, while it all sounds good that you're being "green" -- you're not. Instead, you'll be ponying up extra cash for a novelty power source that is just being wasted.

some seeing eye wrote:Capt. Goddammit is correct, of course! Biodiesel is carbon neutral, though not noise-free. Solar at BM is about learning and experimenting, not a financial model for the cheapest energy.

The energy cost of manufacturing a solar panel varies with the tech, not so bad with compound thin films. But BM has never been an energy or carbon conscious culture, in fact some people presenting efficiency concerns have been ridiculed on this board. BM is a consumption and display culture.

Meh on biodiesel. Though there are benefits for energy security, biodiesel is mostly mankind's excuse to plant subsidized cash crops under the guise of "green energy." The artificially subsidized market for biodiesel, coupled with that fallacious, false-currency "carbon credits", has encouraged the planting of crops such as corn and palm to produce feedstock. Carbon neutral my ass. Those lovely rainforests in Indonesia? Well fuck them (though to be fair, most rainforests are economically worthless), and let's plant a bunch of palms to sell that biodiesel to Europeans. In the states, let's subsidize more energy intensive corn planting so we can make it into bio-diesel. In France, we'll turn that subsidized, overproduced cheap-o wine into fuel too (gotta do something with it).

Still, maybe one benefit of biodiesel may be that it may reduce food supplies, and facilitate starvation. Maybe that'll help with the carbon "neutrality" problem.

Zhust wrote:

Captain Goddammit wrote:A Honda still gives you more watts per dollar than that!

... because the cost of the energy is hidden by the systems we have in place that foster the use of fossil fuels. (Which, in turn, is just sequestered solar power from plants and animals that died and whose hydrocarbons were crunched.)

When I use fossil fuels I tell people I'm using solar and geothermal energy. It's sounds so "green." What is not to love about using nature's solar panels, and the Earth's natural geothermal refinement process to manufacture chemical batteries with extremely high energy densities? Yeah, it releases the carbon back into the atmosphere, but consider that more feedstock.

I an also argue that I'm being carbon-neutral too, by simply releasing the "debt" of stored carbon below the surface of the planet. People don't like seeing it that way though.

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens

Captain Goddammit wrote:I don't suggest biodiesel generators at Burning Man for any sort of "green" reason. I only suggest them because the exhaust smells like french fries. And french fries are yummy.